Eddie is back!

12 days of international travel, hotels, airports and (since his Blackberry had not arrived before he left) no emails for me to deal with. With his return came a string of emails including an interesting conversation with Florian Rouseau of the French Cycling Federation who are using the Wattbikes. The story starts with Eddie “popping over” to France to demonstrate the Wattbikes to Florian Rouseau, who incidentally can create the perfect circle of pedal efficiency – I suppose that is not that surprising when you understand he has three Olympic gold medals, and a silver! Florian was immediately taken by the ability for his athletes to be able to train and test on the Wattbike, especially the ability for young riders to learn about pedal efficiency.

Two months into their use of the Wattbikes and the the findings are very positive. The track team use the Wattbikes 1 – 3 times per week, mostly for longer sprint work of up to 75 seconds. The monitors are all set to show the polar view whilst the riders are doing their training and testing which is proving to be very helpful, especially for the young riders who are focussing on establishing consistent efficient pedal technique. The key for Florian has been to put his athletes onto the Wattbikes for their testing and efficiency education then put them back onto the track to immediately embed the technique on the track. This has facilitated the breaking down of bad habits that he has not been able to impact on in other ways. 

Eddie will be continuing to help Florian to maximise the benefit from his Wattbikes and encourage him to make the most of the polar view during longer sessions which are more productive in creating  a change in the pedal efficiency than short sessions. Will keep you posted……